I could barely function at all after I took that Percocet. Around 2:30 they sent in the social worker to rough me up along the lines that if I wanted to sleep, I needed to sleep at home, and if I wanted to go home I needed to get moving. (I had been walking a lot prior to that and had used the toilet several times and eaten and so on.) I explained to her that it was the Percocet that was making me feel ill and that I wanted a prescription for Vicodin to go home on, because I have had Vicodin and it is okay. I needed a little time for the Percocet to go away. She said I could have another Percocet now if I wanted, (note, as long as I can remember to tell them, I will NEVER TAKE PERCOCET AGAIN) or I could certainly Wait To Hear Back From the Doctor. I told her I was not going to risk throwing up in the car, after abdominal surgery (all this said in my high and squeaky post-op intubated voice.) She left.
So then they do all these tests on me to see how my BP is laying down, sitting down, standing up and I just repeated, like a broken record, that I was nauseous from the Percocet and I did not want to go home with a Percocet prescription and that I would go home when I felt like I was not going to barf. My blood pressure was just fine.
Finally at four, I went home. The surgeon called in a prescription for Vicodin to our pharmacy. I had earlier said I was happy to go home on POT (Plain Old Tylenol) if they could not figure out the Vicodin request.
I will not even go into the abject refusal to find a wheel chair by our nurse. Okay, I will. I am sure she was really busy, and it probably is not her job. You cannot walk out, you have to use a wheel chair but it is not the RN's job or the Aid (who is kind of like the CEO over there) to get the wheel chair. "You need to find a volunteer!" Okay, so are we dumping someone out of a wheel chair? Is that our volunteer? I did not get the "find the volunteer" strategy. Eventually, Mark did find one, and she was really nice and explained that no one likes to wheel people out, but they have to be wheeled out. The reason the volunteers don't like it is because they don't like to stand there and get cold while people get their car. Doesn't it all pay the same? Also, I bet the patient loves freezing their butt off too. Maybe waiting around in the foyer is better?
Regardless, I felt instantly better once I was in the car. This reminds me of a daschund I used to house sit as a teenager that would act sick and not eat but be all happy happy joy joy once she was in the car. I felt just like Noodles once I was in that car!
I hustled right up the stairs when I got home (Mark was shocked) and laid down in the bedroom. Forrest, my 19 year old, hung out with me while he was stringing his lacrosse head. Soon it was like a parade of all three kids, Mark, and the animals.
I decided to sleep downstairs in our study because we have one of those fabulous couches with a Recliner on Each End. This is handy because you can sleep in the recliner position or on the couch position. I was still having a hard time with the CO2 moving up in my shoulders and my lungs feeling weird, so the recliner came in handy.
My ten year old was very determined to sleep with me in the study. I explained to her that I would be up and down all night long and that she needed her rest for school. Finally, I gave in and told her she could sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor. We watched a movie, "Peter Pan" (which is a very politically incorrect movie by today's standards, no?) and "slept" with her on the floor, me on the couch, with the cat right on top of me. Yes, it does hurt like hell when the cat crosses the incision. I tried to protect myself but she is relentless wanting to be right on me. Locking her out is not an option. You understand this if you have had a Siamese kitty.
I probably went to the bathroom about once an hour, at least, because all the fluids I was pumped up with for surgery were working their way out. Every time I had to tell the cat how sorry I was, and dump her off my big bloated CO2 belly, hobble to the bathroom, come back, get situated again, and start to sleep.
A word about the dog. I have a chow mix. She is a Zuni-Rez special, straight from the Zuni Rez. (That is a whole other story.) She is the best dog ever. However, she reserves the right to be a little bit aloof if I leave her overnight. So that first night she would come in and snort around but was still mad at me for leaving her. She slept in her usual spot which is on the landing, until everyone comes home, and then she sleeps in the upstairs hallway.
I called the transplant team on Thursday because I was worried about urinating so much and also that it seemed a little cloudy. This was a danger sign to call about immediately. They still have not called me back yet. (Saturday) I know I should have kept calling but it seems to have straightened out.
The next night we had the same arrangement: Ren on the floor, me on the couch, but dog on the floor, (we had several submit and forgive moments the day before involving belly rubs, chicken jerky treats and love pats) and cat on my stomach. Now I was apologizing to kitty, stepping over either the dog, or Ren, and hitting the bathroom about every hour again. Sigh. At 3 AM the dog needed to go out. I let her out and sat awake waiting for her and she surprised me by asking to be let in the front door, and presented me with a big dirt encrusted joint bone she had dug up somewhere. That was a special moment and someone still needs to vacuum up that mess.
During the day I tried to do a lap around the downstairs, or go up and down the stairs every time I went to the bathroom. I am still drinking a lot of water, Gatorade, water etc. Yesterday I took a nap in my own bed, for the first time, laying flat and on my side, and it was just fine. I have had this strange migraine-y headache since surgery, and when I woke up from that nap, it was finally gone. I still have that migraine hung over feeling. I have not had much pain. I am taking my Vicodin when I go to bed at night. The worst pain is from all the stuff they have to do to get to the kidney, like the anesthesia and the intubation.
Mark and I had to sign some paperwork yesterday and I felt fine to go. I took my first real shower, gross, I know, and when I finally took off all my clothes, I still had leads stuck to me from the surgery. I cannot tell you how many times I have scratched those places and not gotten that there was a foreign object stuck to me.
My recipient Albert also makes me laugh. We talked on the phone last night, he is getting out today to go to a little rental place near the hospital. That is a great thing!
Big thanks to Mark, the kiddos, the pets and yes, even the nurses, and doctors, even though I say tacky things about them, for helping me through all this! Like I have said before, it takes a village to donate a kidney!
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